Abbreviations

The Readability Guidelines include detailed guidelines on the following topics:

• Do not use points or spaces.
• Write out ‘for example’ and ‘that is’ in full.
• Test with users, find out how familiar they are with your abbreviation.
• If an acronym is better understood than the full text, use that.
• Use all capital letters for initialisms.
• Start with a capital letter for acronyms.
• Capitalise single letters in expressions.
• Provide full text explanations.
• Consider providing a full explanation each time.

Abbreviations and acronyms in the Readability Guidelines

Abstract nouns (nominalisations)

Abstract nouns are nouns formed from verbs.

They often end in: -ion, -ment, -al, -age, -ing, -ance, -ant, -dom -ence, -ity, -ism.

Use the verb rather than the abstract noun.

For example:

• ‘provide’ instead of ‘make provision for’
• ‘apply’ instead of ‘make an application to’
• ‘consider’ instead of ‘give due consideration to’.

List of alternatives for abstract nouns:

Nominalisations cheat sheet

Ampersands

Usually use ‘and’ instead of an ampersand (&), but there are some exceptions.

For detailed advice about ampersands, see:

Ampersands in the Readability Guidelines

Apostrophes

You do not need to add an extra ‘s’ after nouns or names ending in ‘s’. Exceptions are okay where the alternative reads more naturally.

Brackets

Limit the use of brackets and avoid using them in the middle of a sentence.

Brand names

Use capitals for proper nouns. Brand names are capitalised.

Use the brand’s own style for joining words in their name together.

Capital letters

The Readability Guidelines on capital letters cover the following topics:

• Capitalising whole words or phrases.
• When to use sentence case.
• Proper nouns — when it is ok to capitalise, for example titles of specific acts or bills.

Capital letters in the Readability Guidelines

Commas

Use the Oxford or serial comma only if it makes a list in a sentence easier to understand.

Contractions

Positive contractions

Simple positive contractions may be fine — although this topic requires further testing by the Readability Guidelines team.

Postive contractions make text feel more conversational and friendly. For native English speakers, contractions also make longer sentences easier to read. However, for some people, contractions can make sentences harder to read. So consider your primary audience when you decide whether to use positive contractions.

If your primary audience includes any of the following people, avoid positive contractions as well as negative contractions:

• people who have a learning disability
• people who have low literacy
• people who have English as a 2nd language
• people who are Deaf (because English may be a second language)
• people who are elderly.

Negative contractions

Avoid negative contractions.

Conditional contractions

Avoid conditional contractions.

You can read more about contractions in the Readability Guidelines.

Em dash

You can use an em dash to separate 2 thoughts in a sentence. Avoid using an em dash to put a separate thought in the middle of a sentence.

En dash

The Readability Guidelines include detailed guidelines on the following topics:

• Avoid using dashes whenever possible.
• If you do use a dash, use an en-dash, not a hyphen or an em-dash.

Hyphens and dashes in the Readability Guidelines

Exclamation marks

Do not use exclamation marks.

Hyphens

The Readability Guidelines include detailed guidelines on the following topics:

• Only use a hyphen if the word is confusing without it.
• Do not use hyphens for time and date ranges, instead use ‘to’.
• Make sure your hyphen usage is up to date.
• Be consistent with your hyphen choices.

Hyphens and dashes in the Readability Guidelines

Percent

Use % — not ‘percent’ or ‘per cent’.

Plurals

Do not use brackets or ‘/s’ to refer to something that could be either singular or plural, like ‘Send your completed document(s) to Inland Revenue’.

Instead, use the plural, as this covers both possibilities: ‘Send your completed documents to Inland Revenue’.

Quotation marks

Use ‘curly’ quotation marks — not 'straight' quotation marks.

Curly quotation marks are easier to understand because the opening and closing marks look different.

Use single quotation marks for:

• short quotations
• direct speech
• titles of documents or publications — do not use italics to show words are part of a title.

Use double quotation marks for:

• a quote within a quote — for example, ‘The customer told us, “That was useful”, which was good to hear.’

When to use single or double quotation marks may depend on your organisation's style. If you normally use double quotation marks for speech, then use single quotation marks for a quote within speech.

Referring to part of a web page

The location of an object can only be described if it’s in the main body of content on a web page.

Be specific when describing the location of an object. An object could be a:

• link
• button
• content
• picture, or
• anything else that can be described on a web page.

For example, ‘choose one of the links below.’

Semi-colons

Avoid semi-colons or comma splices. Instead, write 2 sentences , or separate the clauses using an em dash with a space on either side.

Titles of documents or publications

Use sentence case for the titles of documents or publications. Use single quotation marks to separate document titles from their surrounding text unless the title is a link.